Invention and Innovation - A Brief History of Hype and Failure

From the Included in BILL GATES''s 2023 Holiday Reading List
Included in Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2023
Included in The Next Big Idea Club's February 2023 Must-Read Books
"Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most readable book, Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation, and looks not only at inventions that failed to dominate as promised (such as the airship, nuclear fission, and supersonic flight), but also at those that turned disastrous (leaded gasoline, DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons). And finally, most importantly, he offers a "wish list" of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century. Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity--and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality....

Product details

• Authors: Vaclav Smil, Smil Vaclav
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 03.09.2024
• EAN: 9780262551014
• ISBN: 978-0-262-55101-4
• No. of pages: 232
• Dimensions: 145 mm x 222 mm x 15 mm
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Technology > General, dictionaries; TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / History, History of engineering and technology, History of engineering & technology